The Incredible Shrinking Product Package

It’s happening everywhere: grocery stores, gas stations, bodegas. New, smaller packages of popular products are suddenly available. Instead of four cookies, you can buy two. Rather than ten bagels, you can buy six. That twelve-pack of razors now contains only eight.

Indeed, after reducing package size during the pandemic—while charging the same or more—retailers and other firms are at it again, this time offering an array of diminutive options. The move is the latest response to slower sales, but experts say it’s a risky business. Even if the pricing has been adjusted accordingly, consumer-goods companies may face ire from retailers over lower profits per unit sold, and customers can cry foul too. “It can incur some ill will from consumers who are peeved that the value equation for a given product is eroding,” says Torrey Foster, Jr., vice chairman for consumer markets at Korn Ferry. Worse still, a TikTok influencer could call out the company for engaging in shrinkflation—not always correctly calculating the per-item price—and the damage is done.

The move—a version of which is also occurring in the B2B world, oddly—comes as consumer-goods companies face weaker demand than they did during the pandemic (when in-home consumption was the norm), even as costs have jumped significantly for ingredients, packaging and labor, says Foster. Roughly a third of packages had already shrunk between 2019 and 2024, and 70% of consumers are aware of this, according to a survey by LendingTree.

Rejiggering package sizes is common in times when shoppers have to watch their wallets. Suppliers will frequently change package sizing to offer price points that any budget can absorb. Currently, some retailers are offering an unusually broad array of sizes: In addition to a small and large option, consumers might be able to buy a tiny or medium version. Often firms shift sizing across the board, moving from, say, 10-ounce, 20-ounce, and 30-ounce options to 8 ounces, 16 ounces, and 25 ounces. “Now it’s harder for consumers to make a comparison,” says retail expert Craig Rowley, senior client partner at Korn Ferry.

Though the smaller packages end up on store shelves, the stores themselves usually have little say in the matter. “This is not controlled by the retail side,” says global retail and consumer specialist Denise Kramp, senior client partner at Korn Ferry. Instead, consumer-products suppliers seek to retain their customers while also avoiding the effects of inflation on their products. If a customer buying gas can no longer afford the $5 snack, now there’s a $2.50 option. While not ideal, it keeps the customer from trading down to another brand’s lower-cost or lower-quality product. The risk is that customers trade down to private labels or dollar stores, which are profiting from the current environment. “A big topic at consumer companies is meeting consumers where they are at,” says Renee Whalen, North America consumer market leader at Korn Ferry.

The trend is not limited to consumer goods. B2B firms are also seeing business customers ask for shorter or smaller contracts, as well as other lower-cost options. Driven by budget constraints and uncertainty, the same firms that hired out contracts two years ago are now taking work in-house. “They’re looking for DIY options, or workshops to learn how to do something in an afternoon,” says Maria Amato, senior client partner at Korn Ferry.

Firms are not ending contracts. Rather, they’re seeking bite-size options as they wait and see which way the economic winds blow. “They’re looking for modular pieces of the solution, rather than buying the whole thing,” says Shanda Mints, vice president for RPO analytics and implementation at Korn Ferry. “Right now, they’re going to make a small investment”—just like consumers. 

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